The Ransom
by Sciadoe
Summary: Tommy and Kim are divorced and living seperate lives, the only constant is their 4 children. But when those children go missing and Kim receives a ransom note she and Tommy must find a way to get their children back unharmed before their time is up!
1. Chapter 1

Tommy Oliver's red mustang jerked into the driveway and died, perfect timing. He suppressed a whiny sigh as he gathered his things and pulled his waist length leather jacket up over his head and jumped out of the car into the pouring rain. The key got stuck in the lock, of course, just long enough for the rain to soak him completely and then it gave, allowing him entrance to the dry warmth of his living room. His shoes squeaked the entire walk up the stairs and down the hall where he kicked them off, flinging them at the wall. I had been one of those days, literally nothing had gone according to plan right down to his car messing up on the way home. It was Friday night, the one night a week that he ever got to look forward to. He knew he was running late so he hurried into the closet to find some dry clothes and then back downstairs to rummage through the cupboards because the kids would be there any minute and dinner wasn't going to cook itself.

Despite the boxes of Ramen noodles, Chef Boyardee and Easy Mac there was hardly anything dinner worthy in the cabinets and against his better judgement he broke down and ordered some pizza. Personally he much preferred to feed them organic vegetables and lean meats but it had been such a hectic and terrible day that there just wasn't time. So with dinner on the way he sat down on the couch to catch up on some work and paper grading. If one thing in his life was a surprise to him it was his current career as a high school science teacher. The regularity of the job was something that at one time would have driven him crazy but strangely now it was like a second nature.

He was in the middle of one shamefully bad essay when the doorbell rang. Still reading the paper he held he crossed the room and opened the door. When he lowered the paper he expected to see his four children, instead he saw their mother...and she was very upset.

"Kim...what's wrong?" He asked, forgetting about the rain in his confusion.

"Freezing to death, Tommy. I have to talk to you. Can I come in, or what?"

"Of course." He said, stepping aside and closing the door behind her. Kim was wearing a mid thigh length pink dress with a white sweater over it and she was soaked to the bone. The look on her face told him that she was there on some kind of serious business and probably wouldn't appreciate a comment on how sexy she still was to him. So in true gentleman fashion he retrieved his own bathrobe from the closet door and put it around her shoulders before sitting down on the couch beside her. She was trembling all over and though the rain was pretty cold, he could see that she was very upset.

"What is it, Kim?" His voice was concerned and she immediately broke down into tears. Always the caring gentleman he reached out and tried to comfort her but she pushed him away.

"Tommy, I'm so sorry. It's the kids..." She was sobbing and buried her face in her hands.

Tommy's stomach hurt. They'd been divorced for two years and never once had he missed a weekend with their children. Never once had she failed to drop them off on time. They'd been so respectful to each other on the issue and this was untrod ground.

"What?" he demanded, the suspense becoming too much. "What's happened?"

Kim's body was heaving violently with each loud sob, and though Tommy had never been able to see her cry without being overcome with sympathy, he was now becoming impatient and the fear in his gut was growing nearly unbearable.

"Stop! Kim stop, dammit! Tell me what's going on, now!"

She was startled by the tone of his voice, one of urgency she'd never heard before. His eyes were pleading with her, so she took a deep breath and spoke.

"The kids...they're missing."

"What?" Tommy was on his feet in a split second. "What do you mean missing?"

Kim began sniffling and seemed to be on the verge of tears again.

Grabbing her by the shoulders, he forced her to look at him.

"I realize you're upset Kim but you have to get ahold of yourself. You have to tell me what happened."

She nodded, wiping her nose on his bathrobe. "Well I started that new job a few weeks ago, as you know. I thought the hours were going to be better but I usually don't get off until around six o'clock. The kids get home from school around three and so Kiki was babysitting for a couple hours in the evening. She's stayed home alone before, you know, and she knows not to answer the door for anyone who doesn't have a key. I don't know what happened. But I came home tonight and they were supposed to be ready but all the lights were out. I went in to hurry them up and the house was empty. I found a letter taped to the t.v. And...and then I came over here."

"Where's the letter? Did you call the police?"

Kim retrieved the letter from inside her purse and handed it to him, shaking her head. "Read it."

Tommy held the wet paper in his hand and quickly read over the letter before looking up at Kim.

"This is a ransom note..." He said, meeting Kim's gaze. She nodded. "They want $50,000 dollars in 24 hours or...they're going to kill them."


	2. Chapter 2

Tommy was pacing the living room, deep in thought. Kim watched the lines he'd worn into the carpet grow deeper until she felt like she was going to explode. She groaned and stood up from the couch, throwing his bathrobe at him.

"Will you stop that pacing? It's driving me crazy! Why are we just sitting here instead of out looking for the kids?"

Tommy glared at her, anger suddenly grasping him. "If you hadn't been leaving them alone all the time this wouldn't have happened! Kiki is twelve years old, why would you think she's capable of taking care of the other three as well as herself?"

"That's not fair!" Kim stomped her foot. "I have to work, Tommy."

"It never once crossed your mind that maybe, just maybe I'd love to have a few extra hours a week with them? They could take the bus to my work and I could bring them home and they wouldn't have to be alone. But that would have required you to think about someone other than yourself."

Tears hid behind her eyes, but she forced them to stay there. "Screw you." She growled, grabbing her purse, and she ran out the front door.

He was going to let her go. He could have come up with something on his own without her senseless babbling in the background, and that was just fine with him. Then his eyes caught a glimpse of the photo hanging at the bottom of the stairs. Their last family portrait, taken when Trinity, the youngest, was two. They'd seperated after her third birthday and sometimes he had a hard time remembering why, since they'd both stayed single ever since. He'd retained the house they had once inhabited as a family while Kimberly and the children moved into a newer and nicer home which was completely paid for by the profits of her years in gymnastics. Up until recently he'd spent a lot of time looking at the photo and remembering what he'd long considered to be the perfect life. He'd been so happy and he thought that she was too. He had granted her the divorce because he always wanted her to be nothing but happy, even if it meant that he was miserable. The children had gone to live with her to try to retain a sense of normalcy, though she swore she would never keep them from him. As he stared at the photo it felt like he was being stabbed in the gut. Kiki was the spitting image of Kim, right down to her sassy attitude. The twins, Timmy and Jack, both looked like Tommy but had personalities all their own and at eight years old they couldn't wait to grow up and reach for the stars. Trinity was five and with Tommy's eyes and Kim's smile she was a literal hybrid of the two of them. She bore her mother's jolly sense of humor and her father's overly caring heart and Tommy had fallen head over heels for her when he first laid eyes on her. It was all of them looking back at him from that photograph that moved him, drove his legs to chase Kim down into the rain and beg her to come back inside. When she refused he climbed into the passenger seat of her car and refused to leave.

"Tommy, grow up." Kim snorted, fighting the emotions that she just couldn't seem to get a handle on.

"Kim, please. I'm sorry, okay? I know it's not your fault, I'm just upset. I know you are too. And I'm only going to say this once. Since you left me those kids, all four of them, have been the only thing keeping me sane and making my heart continue beating. If something happened to them I'd never forgive myself, I'd probably just stop breathing. If we can't go to the police then it's up to us to come up with a plan. We have to get them back, Kim. Before it's too late."

Kim stared into his pleading eyes and knew he was right. She nodded and turned the car off. Together they ran through the rain back into the house, soaking wet and shivering once again.

Tommy scoured his closet and came up with a pair of dry sweat pants for himself and one of his t-shirts for Kim. He descended the stairs with a towel draped over his bare shoulder and handed her the shirts and a towel. It touched him strangely that she wasn't bothered with changing in front of him after two years apart. She changed quickly and handed him the wet clothes which he threw in the dryer before joining her on the couch. She was curled up against some pillows with a fleece blanket draped over her legs, and she watched him intently. Tommy took a sip of his coffee, and stared at the photo on the wall.

"How do you do it?"

He looked at he questioningly, took another sip of his coffee and asked "Do what?"

"Live here," she said, brushing her hair behind her ear. "I mean...I couldn't do it if I were you."

He was curious. "Why's that?"

She scoffed. "Well...being here now is like the biggest guilt trip I've ever experienced. Every where I look I remember something from when we were still together, and it hurts."

Tommy knew what she meant. He'd experienced that for a long time and sometimes it still came back to him, but he looked at her and smiled sadly. "That's why I like it," he said. "I'll never forget any of it."

Kim covered her eyes with her hand, rubbing her aching forehead. It was getting late and while she thought she had gained some control over her emotions she still felt an ache inside. If things were normal tonight she'd be watching Timmy and Jack brush their teeth before bed, brushing Trinity's hair and turning on the night light, and then she'd have gone into Kiki's room to talk about her day before kissing them all goodnight. She was so sick with worry already, and the new wave of guilt she was feeling over Tommy was more than she could take. Trying to avoid his gaze she stood and ran to the bathroom where she emptied her stomach and fell into a heap on the floor. Imagining her children in the situation they were in right then was nauseating but she couldn't shake it.

Several minutes later Tommy found her there in the bathroom floor, a sobbing mess. The loving and caring man she always remembered lifter her head into his lap and tenderly wiped her face with a wash cloth. It was the damnedest thing, how she'd tore his heart out for sport. They'd grown up together and made this amazing family and for all intents and purposes they were happy. But her restless spirit got the better of her and she'd left him in search of independence and freedom and instead she found loneliness and heartache which she'd spent two long years refusing to acknowledge. Sure, she'd proven that she was capable of standing on her own two feet. She'd also proven that she could be a stone cold bitch and that it was remarkably easy for her to ignore the feelings of her children as well as their father

and that she was capable of anything, including tearing them away from each other. She just wished he wouldn't make it so damn hard to forget.

Crying again and fighting back another upset stomach she wrapped her arms around his waist and clung to him. Instinctively he held her, brushing her hair away with his fingertips. No matter what had happened between them, no matter how long they'd been apart, she was still the most beautiful woman alive. He knew the fear that she was feeling because it had him in its grips as well. The makings of a plan were formulating in his head and he was anxious to carry it out and get his world back. He placed the strongest arms she'd ever felt underneath her body and lifted it off the cold tile floor. Clutching her against his rock hard chest he carried her to the living room where he tucked her under the blanket and lay the cold rag over her forehead. Placing a quick kiss on her temple he left her there, where she cried herself to sleep.


End file.
